27 pages • 54 minutes read
Donald BarthelmeSome of Us Had Been Threatening Our Friend Colby
Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1973A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Authorial Context: Donald Barthelme
Donald Barthelme, an American author born in 1931 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is renowned for his distinctive and experimental writing style. His work straddles the realms of Modernist realism, Postmodernist fragmentation, and absurdism, often blurring the lines between high and low culture, tragedy, and comedy. Barthelme’s work, including “Some of Us Had Been Threatening Our Friend Colby,” frequently showcases this unique amalgamation of disparate elements, pushing boundaries to challenge the reader’s perceptions and preconceived notions about narrative conventions and the nature of literature.
Barthelme’s stories typically offer insights into human nature, society, and culture through provocative and often disconcerting narratives. His characters are typically caught up in bizarre, absurd, or Kafkaesque situations, with his narratives often emphasizing their attempts to navigate these confusing scenarios. Barthelme’s use of language favors a collage-like approach that blends snippets of pop culture, scientific jargon, and other forms of discourse.
“Some of Us Had Been Threatening Our Friend Colby” is a quintessential Barthelme story, showcasing his distinctive Postmodern style, penchant for absurdity, and tendency to disrupt traditional narrative forms. The text explores themes of friendship, violence, absurdity, and the human capacity for rationalizing irrational behavior as it depicts a group of friends planning a bizarre and disturbing party for their friend Colby. Barthelme’s use of minimal exposition and his ability to inject the mundane with layers of deeper meaning is particularly evident in this story.
Literary Context: Postmodernism
The story is a classic example of Postmodernist fiction, a literary movement that gained prominence in the mid-20th century as a reaction to the perceived limitations of Modernist literature. Postmodernism, characterized by its playfulness, intertextuality, fragmentation, and metafiction, seeks to challenge and disrupt traditional narrative forms.
The narrative structure of “Some of Us Had Been Threatening Our Friend Colby” is fragmented and disjointed, reflecting the Postmodern emphasis on nonlinear, nontraditional storytelling. The characters’ rationalization of their plan to hang Colby captures the Postmodern themes of the instability of meaning and the subjectivity of reality. Furthermore, the story’s dark humor and mix of the ordinary with the grotesque align with the Postmodern penchant for combining disparate elements to challenge conventional understandings of genre, style, and content.
Additionally, Barthelme’s use of language in this story reflects Postmodernism’s interest in the playful and disruptive potential of language. The dialogue is simultaneously banal and disturbing, juxtaposing the commonplace and the grotesque to create a sense of disquieting absurdity. This manipulation of language to disrupt the reader’s expectations is a hallmark of Postmodern literature, reflecting its commitment to questioning and challenging accepted norms and conventions.
In summary, “Some of Us Had Been Threatening Our Friend Colby” embodies the Postmodernist ethos in its narrative structure, themes, and use of language. It serves as an example of how Postmodern literature can challenge and subvert reader expectations, offering a layered and complex exploration of the possibilities of fiction.
Related Titles
By Donald Barthelme
